The Fungus

“Watch me.” He pushed the outer door open, slid through the airlock, then jumped down to the ground. He almost slipped on the fungal matting but managed to keep his balance. It was fortunate that he did. Three lumbering figures were coming straight toward him, clubs in their hands. They were less than five yards away.

Operating the Sterling with just one hand — he was holding the scotch in the other — he sprayed them with bullets. All three of them dropped but in the grey twilight he could see more of them coming down the Harrow Road towards the crashed Stalwart.

He hurried across the intersection and into Ladbroke Grove. It was difficult running on the slippery, yielding surface but by adopting a kind of sliding shuffle he found he could keep up a fair pace.

He crossed over the bridge that spanned the Grand Union Canal. The canal itself couldn’t be seen. It was concealed beneath a thick profusion of different fungi, some of them quite huge. The plentiful supply of water had obviously allowed the fungi to grow even larger than usual along the canal’s route. The giant, brightly colored toadstools marched in both directions in straight columns as if someone had deliberately arranged them in formation.

Slocock hurried on and then took cover beside a fungus draped building that he felt instinctively had once been a pub. He set his bottle down carefully between his feet and waited. He didn’t have to wait long.

They came hurrying along the road, using the same sort of shuffle he had. There were only about a dozen of them. He guessed the rest of the mob he’d seen were concentrating on the truck. He felt a momentary pang of regret at having had to leave Kimberley behind, but quickly suppressed it.

When the shuffling group had passed his hiding place he stepped out and opened fire. He got most of them with the long burst but two were still standing when he’d emptied the clip.

Unhurriedly he pulled the empty clip out, threw it away and replaced it with a fresh one. The two creatures hesitated, then started toward him. He felt strangely calm and detached as they approached. Even when one of them spoke, unexpectedly, in a clear, educated woman’s voice he experienced no real surprise. He was beyond surprise.

“Don’t shoot,” she said. “We just want to talk to you.” He let them get closer. One of them was holding a crowbar. When they were about six feet away and he could plainly see the loathsome details of the crusts that covered them he opened fire.

As the bullets smashed into them they were both sent sprawling backward, but the one with the crow-bar flung it at Slocock as he, or she, fell. He dodged to one side and the bar missed him. But then it bounced off the fibrous wall behind and landed right on the whiskey bottle.

Slocock stared down in distress at the shattered remains. He felt like crying.

He walked over to the two fallen fungus victims and kicked the nearest one in the side. His boot penetrated the crust and body beneath it by several inches, making a dry snap sound. When he pulled the boot free he saw a greenish liquid begin to trickle out of the cavity he’d made.

Incuriously he examined the other corpse. This one was lying in a pool of ordinary red blood. He wondered if this was the woman. He also wondered, if he ripped off all the fungal crusts, whether he’d find the body of a perfectly ordinary woman underneath.

He doubted it, but the idea made him think of his wife Marge. They’d had some good times together, at first. But then he’d realized their sexual needs were out of sync. He’d never thought of himself as undersexed, but she had made him feel that way after a while. She wanted it every night, no matter what. And when he couldn’t manage it every night, or at least without being able to conceal the effort it took, she began to nag and taunt him about it, which only made the situation worse. And after that things just went to pieces.

Where was she now? he wondered idly. He knew she’d moved to London after leaving Aldershot, but she’d never sent him her new address. Was she still alive, and if so, did she look like one of these things lying on the ground in front of him?

His thoughts turned to Kimberley and their love-making of the night before. Again he felt regret at having to leave her behind and briefly considered returning to the truck, but he dismissed it as a suicidal idea. There had been too many of the things coming down the road and, hell, it was probably too late now.

But the thought that he might never see again a plague-free, naked woman in whatever time he had left depressed him profoundly. “Christ, I need a drink,” he muttered and stared wistfully at the broken bottle.

Then he walked back to the building and peered in through the strands of fungus that clung to the window. It was a pub, he realized.